The Globe. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 43, 20 July 1874, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

The Immigration Departments, both that of the General Government, managed by Dr Featherstone in England, and the various Provincial ones in different parts of this colony, seem to be badly managed all round. With regard to the General Government Department, there can be no doubt that Dr Featherstone has managed to bungle the matters connected with it, in no very creditable manner. Complaints are poured in from the various provinces of a number of male immigrants sent out, of the class selected, and of the characters and previous occupations of the various single women, who have been deemed worthy of a passage to these islands. Mr Vogel distinctly states in his correspondence that Dr Featherston must hold himself responsible for the shipping of a lot of women from the Cork workhouse, to augment the population of Otago, and that, notwithstanding that they had been selected by a Mrs Howard, who had been strongly recommended to the doctor, from Otago. "We now hear of another shipment of workhouse females from Queenstown, having arrived per ship Caroline, at Port Chalmers. The report of the captain is, that he has brought out 126 single women, including the 40 above mentioned, and that these latter have behaved themselves the best of the lot throughout the voyage. Now we can hardly expect that out of the 40 selected from the workhouse there were not some whose past character was hardly the most respectable in the world, though the greater portion of them may have been compelled to accept of its cold charity through no fault of their own. But if this is the case, what sort of people must be the remaining 80 single women who have arrived in the same ship? We know that immigrant ships differ much, as to discipline and arrangements, and what may be a heinous crime in the eyes of one trio of captain, do<;tor,and matron, who are in charge of cue batch of single women, may seem a comparatively trivial offence in the eyes of a similar trio on board another ship. The worst of it is, that thoroughly respectable, useful immigrants, may have the misfortune to be passengers on board a ship, which is carrying a workhouse consignment, and when once they are known to have been "compagnons de voyage" of these people, they will labour under the stigma that, rightly or wrongly (though most probably the latter) will be incurred by every immigrant on board. And in most cases denial will be useless and, the advice given by one respectable householder to another, will most probably be, " have nothing to do with them; they came out in the ," as if every one on board was bound to be a bad character. We are very glad to see that this prejudice is not so strong in Otago, as we are afraid it would be in this province, for in the " Otago Daily Times " of the 17th July we see that there seems to be no difficulty on the part of the single women in getting places at good wages, and we note the engagement of a dozen on that date, at from £25 to £35 per annum. We also see that the Otago Government are sending up about eighty males and females to Tokamiriro for engagement, and we trust that their arrangements for the transit of these people are better than ours in this province, as was instanced inthe case of the batch of German immigrants, forwarded the other day from Christchurch to the Oxford Depot. We see the " Daily Times " suggests that if a ship could be got to take back the single women who have been sent out from Cork workhouse, it might be the cheapest arrangement in the end, if the Provincial Government were to take the chance, even if they had to pay double passage money for them, but we decidedly differ from our contemporary in this respect. There is a very fair chance, it appears, of many of the forty women turning out useful colonists, and at the end of five years it would be instructive to see how many of them had succeeded in Olago, and how many of their remaining eighty-six fellow passengers had also done well. We think the percentage is as likely as not to be pretty nearly equal, and wo trust lor the sake of the colony that it may be so.